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Buffy Stuff | Buffy Adult
Apocalypse Memories - extract
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I thought you would have come back with a Madonna-esque accent." Xander stepped over a root pushing through the sidewalk. "You know, quasi-British, quasi-American, quasi-moronic."
Willow wanted to smile. Xander was trying so hard, scraping the bottom of his joke barrel to come up with the Madonna thing. But she couldn't quite get her lips to obey her brain and curve up.
"What's wrong, Will?" Xander asked. "Besides the fact that you were recently invisible to all your friends and almost got your skin eaten off?"
"It's just..." How to explain it? "It's all so Sunnydale. Lots of memories," she answered, giving him part of the truth.
"Not all bad ones, though." Xander scanned the street. "Okay, so we're currently passing the mall where the Judge tried to start up a death spree. And almost directly below us is where we went mano-a-claw with... Wait. Forget that. Across the street is where we had those really good burritos that time after the movie we wanted to see was sold out. Buffy and Riley. You and Tara. Me and, well, me, because Anya was pissy about something. The fact that I wasn't making six figures directly out of high school, I'm sure. But that's not the point. The point is, good times. Y'know, when we weren't saving the world. Remember?"
Willow actually smiled as she looked over at Taco Mike's. It all came back to her in a rush-the way her nose started to run after a few bites of the toxically hot salsa, and how Tara reached over and wiped her nose for her and everybody went "aww." Or, all right, "eww," but it hadn't made her feel like a cruddy-faced five-year-old. It was just... sweet.
"I miss her," Willow said, speaking aloud but talking more to herself than Xander.
"Of course you do," Xander answered. "And I had to start talking about her when I wanted to cheer you up." He slapped himself on the forehead. "Smart, Harris. Very-"
Willow put her hand on his arm. "Hey, no. Don't. I think about her all the time, whether somebody mentions her or not. And you know what's weird? I keep realizing new ways I miss her."
She used both hands to brush her red hair away from her face. "Like I found out I miss her when something good happens. I wasn't expecting that. You'd think good is just good, right?"
"Uh-huh." Xander walked right under one of the blue-and-white awnings of the stinky cheese shop without jumping up to touch it. When had he stopped doing that? While she was away? Or had he stopped doing it years ago and she just hadn't noticed?
"Well, when I was with the coven and I really connected to the earth for the first time, that's when I thought maybe I'd be okay, you know?" Willow continued.
"Yeah," Xander answered. "I remember when you wrote about that in one of your letters."
"And when I wrote the letter, I was kind of happy, as close to happy as I'd been in a long time," Willow said. "Then the next morning I was eating breakfast, and I just suddenly started crying, because I realized I didn't have Tara to share my happiness with. And it would have meant more to her than anybody."
They rounded the corner and walked in silence for a moment. "Oh, here's another important stop on The Sunnydale Memory-you'd-rather-forget Tour," Xander exclaimed, his voice a little too loud. Why did guys always seem to have such trouble with quiet? She and Tara could sit together for hours without words.
"I believe it is at this very spot that Buffy found her mom making out with our own Giles after a little too much enchanted candy," Xander rushed on, adding a tour guide impression to the loud.
"Ew, yeah." Willow wrinkled her nose, trying to get with the Xander program. "Hey, how many normal days in a row do you think we've had in this town? Best ever?" she couldn't stop herself from asking, even though she knew she was being a party pooper-again.
The smile slipped off Xander's face as he considered her question. "Maybe eleven. No, 'cause there was that slimy... " He narrowed his brown eyes. "I'm going with eight."
"Eight." Willow felt a layer of ice form over her intestines. "So it's gonna have to happen soon."
"What?" Xander demanded. "Have you heard something? An omen? A prophesy? Something in the Star?"
"No. Nothing like that," Willow answered quickly. "Well, except the Star. I just mean odds are a situation is going to come up pretty fast where I have to use my magick." Spears of the ice began to pierce her organs now. She walked faster, hoping that would warm her.
"That's okay though, right?" Xander loped alongside her. "Buffy will get her slay on, and whatever it is, we'll help. You got all that training in England. You're good to go, right?"
"Except I'm terrified," Willow burst out. She jerked to a stop. She hadn't meant to say that. Xander, Buffy, Dawn-sooner or later they were going to need her, need her magick. It was inevitable. She didn't want them to hesitate to turn to her. And now she'd blurted out the T word.
Xander looked as shocked as she felt. "Terrified," he said. "I'm trying to think if I've ever heard you use the word 'terrified.'"
"I've never been this terrified," she said.
"Okay, this is serious." Xander took her elbow and led her ten feet into the Smoothie Shack. He sat her down, bought her a strawberry-banana smoothie and took the seat next to her.
Willow gripped her waxy paper cup so tightly that the gloppy pink mix oozed over the top and down the sides. "I killed someone, remember?"
"Yeah, you went all black-eyed and veiny. Not easy to forget," Xander answered, trying to meet her gaze but only making it to the bridge of her nose.
"It felt different in England. Lots of grass, lots of accents, no history. I mean, dead kings and queens and musty old buildings, but no history involving me. Being back here..." The ice made its way up her throat. She swallowed hard, trying to push it back down. "I feel like if I tried to magickally repair a broken fingernail I could end up-" She shook her head viciously. "I don't even want to imagine it."
Xander slapped his hands down on the little round table. "Peanuts!"
Willow's eyebrows drew together. "What?"
"That's what they do with people who are afraid of flying," Xander explained. "They have them sit on the plane on the ground and eat airplane snacks. They don't even go off the ground at first. It's part of a desensitization program. That's what you need."
"I need to eat peanuts?"
"No, see, the white-knuckle fliers eat the peanuts until they're comfortable with it. Then they work up to sitting on the plane on the tarmac. Then sitting there while it just taxis... you know, baby steps."
"Okay, I get it." Willow felt the tiniest bit hopeful for the first time since she'd returned from England. "I need a magick desensitization program."
"So, what's one of the first spells you ever did?" Xander asked.
A picture popped into Willow's mind-a picture of herself on the grass in front of Sunnydale High with a pencil floating in the air in front of her. "Levitation," she answered.
"Okay. So today we do a levitation spell." Xander hauled her to her feet. "Let's go get supplies."
"Wait! What about the sitting and eating peanuts part?" Willow protested.
"It's Sunnydale. Eight days, remember?" Xander pulled Willow out the door. "But you won't have to do it alone. I know I'm not part of a British coven. And I'm no Tara," he added gently. "But..."
Willow gave him a one-armed hug, keeping the hand holding her sloppy smoothie outstretched.
"You're the best," she told him, feeling the ice in her body begin to melt.
Xander clapped his hands like a little kid. "Let's go do some magick!"
© 2004 Laura J. Burns and Melinda Metz . Taken from Apocalypse Memories, published in the UK by Pocket Books March 2004. Reproduced with kind permission of Pocket Books.
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Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the UK on BBC 2. Buffy the Vampire Slayer copyright Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All rights reserved.
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Willow
'I'm sorry. I'll try for a quiet rage. Bye.'
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